Road comm. signs restricted covenant on garage property

Kortny Hahn Staff Writer, @khahnCDT @khahnCDT

Tuesday

Feb 7, 2017 at 12:01 AM

The Cheboygan County Road Commission board voted to sign a Declaration of Restricted Covenant for their Tower garage Friday morning, restricting construction on a portion of the property or for putting a well there. Last year, the road commission was given several options as to what it can do with that property after a spill that happened several years ago contaminated the ground. It chose to go with the covenant, to seal of the property until a later date. “We originally addressed this last June, I think it was, and we authorized James (Johnson) at the time to sign it since he was the chair,” said Road Commission Engineer and Manager Brent Shank. The restrictive covenant paperwork was not completed by that time, so it was addressed again at the meeting Friday. “We just got the document in, so we need to authorize the correct chair,” said Shank. In December of 2015, Mackinaw Environmental did some sampling on the wells on the property. The test results indicated that the property qualified for closure of the underground storage tank. After that report had been submitted to the state, the road commission was left with two options, signing the restrictive covenant on the easterly 115 feet, or to continue testing the wells every quarter, which can get rather expensive the longer they do it. Once it signed the covenant, the road commission has the option to test the wells again in a couple of years and see if the contamination levels have gone down enough to apply to have the covenant removed. Mackinaw Environmental felt the contamination was contained on the site and was not a threat to the neighboring properties. The well was contaminated is a shallow aquifer and the well water for that site comes from below that shallow well, in a confined aquifer, which was unaffected by the spill. There are no plans to want to build on the easterly 115 feet of the property where the Tower garage is located. If the road commission did want to construct another building or sink a new well there is plenty of other property to do so on. By the time they get to the point of needing or wanting to build again, the contamination may have mitigated itself. “Mackinaw Environmental did advise us that after a couple three years we can do another round of testing and go through the process to have that removed, if we want to pursue that,” said Shank. “If we did do something, we want to move a little further away from the road. But we do have the option of getting that removed.” Several years ago, the underground storage tanks for materials used by the road commission had leaked into the ground. Since that time, those tanks have been dug up and removed. What is being tested is the residual portion of materials that are left in the ground from that leak. The levels are close enough to the acceptable level that with the restrictive covenant, the Department of Environmental Quality may approve that area for closure. All of the salt is now kept in a barn at the Tower location with a cement pad out front of it so there is no chance of leaking into the ground. Also at the meeting, the board voted to authorize Chair David Brown and Vice-Chair David Brandt to sign the title sheets for their East Mullett Lake Road and Mullett Lake Road projects. The road commission is looking to put the East Mullett Lake Road project, from Hackelburg Road up to Old School Road, out to bids in April or May for the construction to take place this summer. The Mullett Lake Road project is a safety project and will be widened out, from 22 feet of asphalt to 24 feet. “A little wider, but there's not a lot of room,” said Shank. The board also approved the certification of the road commission's Act 51 certification maps, detailing the amount of road maintained by the entity. Last year, the road commission abandoned a piece of Abitibi Road, Long Point Drive and a piece of Hebron Cut Off Road. This means the length of road maintained will be reduced by 1.22 miles.

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